DCS 109: Final Portfolio Guide

Creating your Portfolio

• As a final culminating project, you will be building a repository throughout the semester to help you learn the course concepts while also reflecting on your understanding.

• As part of this repository, you will be asked to include well-documented examples of your completed work that address a particular concept, and to provide guided reflections on that concept and on your work.

• You will also be asked to include a few reflections on investigations of real-world contexts (e.g., rank-choice voting, bias in algorithms).

The goal of the final portfolio is to synthesize concepts covered in the lectures, homeworks, labs, and project and create a showcase of your work.

Each section will include:

1. Zines a zine that explains concepts in a simple way.
2. Documented example of work: well-documented examples of your completed work that address a particular concept, and reflections on that concept and on your work including any revisions based on feedback.
3. Real world reflection: that shows how a concept connects to the real-world.

The final portfolio will consist of the following themes:

Theme	Description
Data Types and Strings	zine; documented example (e.g. hw1.py)
Variables, assignment statements & expressions	zine; documented example
Functions (fruitful, non-frutiful)	zine; documented example
For Loops	zine; documented example
Algorithms (1. Count something, 2. Add numbers, 3. Build a string, 4. Build a list)	zine ; documented example
Control Flow (if, if else, elif, while)	zine; documented example (e.g. proj 1); real-world reflection (EdStem: Rank Choice Voting)

1. Zines

“A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine.” ~ Wikipedia

Zines should set out to answer:

1. What do people need to know about a topic?
2. What are the most important things?
3. What did you found surprising when learning this topic?

As you write your zine you should think about how you would write a clear explanation to describe it to someone new?

Let’s look at a few examples by Julia Evans of wizardzines.org

Example 1

Asking Good Questions Zine Example by Julia Evans.

Example 2

BASH tricks zine example by Julia Evans.

How to create a zine

1. How to make a zine without fancy tools by Julia Evans?

2. A documented sample

Your documented sample should consist of:

1. A homework, lab, or project
2. A short introduction (3-4 sentences) pointing out how it illustrates the concept, with the particular sections of code where the concept is used referenced.
3. A short bulleted reflection pointing out any changes made from feedback (e.g. fixing points deducted) e.g.

• style: spaces were added before and after operators.
• fix count_votes algorithm: fix count_votes algorithm by …

3. Real world context

• This will include your EdStem post about a particular topic.

Submitting your Portfolio

• In google drive, we will create a portfolio folder with sub folders for each theme. Each folder should contain:

1. A zine: If you prefer to draw your zine, you can scan it and include it as a png or pdf.
2. Your polished hw, lab, or project
3. A document describing how your hw, lab, or project demonstrates a concept and a short summary of any updates you made to your hw, lab, or project based on feedback.
4. Real-world context (N.B. Only for particular sections)